rImplement Measure To Prevent Infection
- Give your workers a place to wash their hands frequently with soap. Alternatively, give them hand rub that is made up of at least 60% alcohol. In addition, give them tissues, no-touch trash cans and Personal Protective Equipment. PPE includes things like face masks, face shields, respiratory protection, gloves and goggles. Moreover, workers should wash their hands when they are dirty and after removing PPE.
- Buy trash cans and tissues for non-employees to use.
- Tell workers to stay at home if they are sick.
- Remind workers to cover their coughs and sneezes.
- Implement telecommuting or staggered shifts if possible.
- Instruct employees to not use the office equipment of other workers if possible. That is, to use their own desks, phones and other work equipment.
- Regularly disinfect surfaces and work equipment with cleaning products approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.
- Employees that work closer than 6 feet of patients that have Covid-19 or are suspected to have Covid-19, should use a respirator. The recommended respirators are N95 filtering facepiece respirators, if N95 respirators are not available, use R/P95, N/R/P99, or N/R/P100 filtering facepiece respirator. Use more protective filtering facepiece respirators when working is most likely to produce aerosols. Powered-air purifying respirators (PAPRs) or Supplied-air respirators (SARs) are recommended. According to The Free Dictionary, an aerosol is a gaseous suspension of fine solid or liquid particles. Some job procedures that may produce aerosols include filling a syringe, blowing out pipettes, cough induction procedures and some dental procedures. Face shields can be worn above a respirator if the shape of the respirator allows this to happen, and airflow is not constricted because the face shield is on top of the respirator. Respirator training can be found at https://www.osha.gov/respiratory-protection .
Protecting The Workplace
- Persuade employees to stay home if they are sick.
- Allow employees to not come to work if they have to take care of a sick relative.
- Decrease face-to-face meetings with your employees, clients and customers. This can be done by using the internet to have meetings or communicate virtually.
- Stop non-important travel to places with current Covid-19 outbreaks.
- Provide a space, like a forum, for workers to talk about the Covid-19 emergency.
- Educate employees about the risk factors of Covid-19 and what they can do to prevent getting it.
- If some of your workers must wear protective equipment and clothing, train them how to wear them effectively.
- Put handwashing signs in bathrooms.
Safe Work Practices
Personal Protective Equipment:
- Must be chosen based on the risks faced by the employee.
- Must be fitted correctly and refitted if needed.
- Must be worn when necessary.
- Should be examined for problems, maintained in great condition, and replaced when needed.
- Should be removed and cleaned correctly to prevent infection. Moreover, PPE should be stored in a safe place and thrown away when no longer useful.
Engineering Controls
- Get high-performing air filters.
- Try to get the best possible ventilation rate in the work environment.
- Separate workers with physical products like sneeze guards.
- Provide customer service by using a drive-through window.
Source: https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3990.pdf
Recent Comments